A Grim Wasteland on News at Six

Published: June 14, 1992

(Page 3 of 4)

The focus on disasters and mayhem, not the good news story in Harlem or the Bronx, is only natural, he says, because it sells. "People may say they want good news," Mr. Bolster says, "but it reminds me of the F.D.R. Drive: Everyone honks when they are tied up in traffic. But when they get to the wreck, they look, too."

"People are just less likely to read the editorial pages than watch the car wreck," he said.

Too, the complex pieces, reporting about the national debt, the savings and loan crisis and other arcania, he says, just do not make for good television. "It would take more time than we have, and it still would not be interesting." Clammor for a Change

Some voices are calling for change. Osborn Elliott, the former editor of Newsweek who is now the dean emeritus of the Columbia School of Journalism, calls it the "curled-lip school of journalism." He condemned the press for its relentless negativism and called for a new approach to news.

"It's time for the press of this city to wake up and recognize the fact that they are important members of the community and they should get with it," he said. "I'm certainly not asking the media to ignore crime, grime and whores. But they've got to start taking responsibility for art, culture, commerce and community life as well."

Such have long been the dinner party laments of some intellectuals who would have The New York Review of Books set the standard for tabloid journalism. But a strange thing is happening across New York's newsrooms. Collectively, it sounds rather like a clamor for good news.

Liz Smith, the nationally syndicated gossip columnist who writes for Newsday, says the city's press corps has slipped from the bonds of decency. "If you watch TV," she said, "you just think the whole city is falling apart. And yet you go out on the streets and New York is pretty much the same as it always was. I know we have problems. But there's no reason for the press to keep everyone in this state of horrifying anxiety.

"If they do a story about someone putting a baby in an oven, I don't want to see it four times before bedtime and then again when I get up in the morning," Ms. Smith added. "It just makes people feel really sick. When I get out of town, I just feel this sense of relief!" Too Many Studies

Bud Carey, who was recently named general manager of news at WCBS-TV, says excessive focus on market research has moved news coverage too far from its roots. He sees his mandate at the third-ranked station in the region as returning the network to more in-depth reports.

"This business," he said, "is always searching for the holy grail. One of the great tyrannies we deal with is overnight ratings."

Another tyranny is the city itself. To those who want to stress the sensational and grotesque, it is endlessly accommodating. Somewhere, at any time, a crime is being committed, a tragedy is unfolding. The region's reporters have but to move out in pursuit of the mayhem, chattering on cellular telephones and weighed down with beepers, pens, tape recorders and notebooks. The Evolution Fox and Tabloids Spicen the Stew

No one can quantify when or how the shift in coverage began. But Pablo Guzman, a reporter with Fox, has a theory. "We all held our breath when Fox was taken over by Murdoch because we knew his track record," he said. "We were looking at all the guys over at ABC and CBS and NBC to hold the line. But after awhile, their newscasts started to get more and more like ours By the time the Trump stories hit, everybody scrambled as though this were World War II."

Donald J. Trump remembers the period with bitterness. "I've had reporters go up to people on my staff and tell them they knew something was incorrect, but they had to go with it because it would sell," he said.

Headlines do sell, whether they're the promotional spots for the 11 o'clock news or the huge type on the front of The New York Post. "A tabloid page one," said Donald Forst, the editor of New York Newsday, "ideally has an emotion and has to smack you in the eye. It has to go to the gut and make you say, 'wow,' or 'holy smoke,' or 'goddamn,' or whatever it is that you say."

Articles printed inside the newspaper are more sober, but it is the headlines that tend to linger: "TORTURE IN THE SUBWAY," "BODEGA TERROR," "PAID ME IN SEX." Not a New Phenomenon

In reality, the New York press corps, like some overgrown, obstreperous adolescent, has always had its moments of aggression and bad taste.

In 1851, competing with The New York Herald, The New-York Daily Times carried several tantalizing headlines on page one: "Woman Poisoned," "Accident to an Omnibus Driver," and "Arrest of an Escaped Prisoner." A short feature described the scandal of the moment, the appearance of women clad in bloomers lingering amid a crowd of conservatives that "manifested its hostility."

And through later years, crime has been a staple of the competitive battles among New York's great papers, including The Daily News and The Herald.

Today, The Times is again reacting to competitive pressures, trying to combat an impression that the paper is more interested in Botswana than the Bronx. "It didn't take a lot of study to figure out that the Metro section of old was shortchanging our readers," said Gerald M. Boyd, metropolitan editor of The Times. "We didn't have adequate resources in New York. Ditto Connecticut. Ditto Long Island." The paper responded by expanding bureaus across the region and adding pages to the section. The Tabloids' Challenge